In general, cheek retractors have been commonly used in dental procedures. These cheek retractors are a necessity when the oral surgeon or dentist must perform work on teeth toward the rear of the mouth. A cheek retractor is inserted into the mouth to pull the lips and cheek away from the area to be worked. At that point, the dental procedure is possible within the space created by the cheek retractor.
Cheek retractors have, however, had certain natural drawbacks. First, cheek retractors generally fall into one of two categories. Either the cheek retractor is required to be emplaced inside the full mouth to perform a two-handed operation, or the cheek retractor must be held in place on one side of the mouth, removed, and put into the opposite side of the mouth so that the cheek retractor is held in a different position. This second procedure must be done with both hands, so that dental procedures are impossible during shifting. In other words, there have been no uniform, universal cheek retractor useful for oral procedures on either side of the mouth.
Second, the cheek retractors used to simultaneously hold back both sides of the mouth generally have been flimsy and because they pull back both sides, tend not to draw the cheek far enough away from the mouth for proper positioning of the mouth and adequate work clearance.